SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Health on Thursday, for the second day in a row, reported more than 3,000 new COVID-19 cases since the day before. Including seven more deaths.
Before the holidays, new daily case counts had been trending down, but this week they shot back up by a large margin.
Governor Spencer Cox responded by urging Utahns to get vaccinated and boosted.
"After weeks of steady declines in cases and hospitalizations caused by the Delta variant, Omicron has arrived. As expected, case numbers are increasing exponentially as this variant is far more contagious," the governor said in a series of tweets.
School-aged children accounted for 360 of the newly announced cases.
- 127 cases in children ages 5-10
- 87 cases in children ages 11-13
- 146 cases in children ages 14-17
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The health department reported, 14,378 new doses of vaccine had been administered statewide since Wednesday.
The rolling 7-day average for positive tests is 1,898 per day. The rolling 7-day average for percent positivity of "people over people" is 12.4%. The rolling 7-day average for percent positivity of "tests over tests" is 8.4%.
The health department reported there are 436 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. That's not a significant increase but often hospitalization numbers are delayed by a couple of days.
The health department will release their next report on Monday, due to the New Years holiday.
Case statistics for the seven newly announced death are as follows:
- Female, between 25-44, Sanpete County resident, not hospitalized at time of death
- Male, between 65-84, Washington County resident, not hospitalized at time of death
- Male, between 45-64, Salt Lake County resident, hospitalized at time of death
- Female, between 45-64, Salt Lake County resident, hospitalized at time of death
- Female, between 65-84, Weber County resident, long-term care facility resident
- Male, between 65-84, Utah County resident, hospitalized at time of death
- Male, between 65-84, Iron County resident, hospitalized at time of death
The health department noted: One death previously reported yesterday has been removed. A man between 45-64 from Tooele County.
The statewide total of COVID-19 deaths is now 3,787.